Wahooooo!

Christian is home safely!!! He is amazing!

14 Dec 2009

Hey everybody!

I spent a little bit too much time admiring the Calvin pictures, so I'm going to have to be quick! Congratulations to Ariana and crew!!!

Good grief, it sounds like the house EXPLODED. I hope the insurance and everything pulls through. I remember the last time the pipe froze in the living room, but it sounds like that was nothing in comparison to this one.

Well, transfers happened, and I stayed. Elder Johnson went to my last area in Lisbon and Elder Greg Walker (who knows Uncle Golden and Missy) came over. It's just three of us covering what was once two areas. We've been working even crazier than usual in order to finish me off well. We've been finding a bunch of people to talk to and trying to get them discovering what we're really offering them, but so far it's nothing too spectacular. We've spent most of the time in Monte since Costa is mostly empty at this time of year (it's basically a beach town).

I've got a funny story about learning gratitude. We were heading home Friday night and decided to visit Raul, a legless guy who I had talked to in the street a couple times before. He lives on the 7th floor of one of the pink buildings by our house. It's rare for the elevators to work in mamy of the buildings around us, but we got this one to work to get up there. On the way back down, the elevator wasn't working, so we went to take the stairs. The lights weren't working (not surprising), so we walked slowly down the dark stairway. I was going down first, and after making it to the first landing I pointed out a stair I hadn't been expecting to the other two. Then, getting down to the sixth floor, I REALLY found a stair I wasn't expecting and twisted my ankle a bit. It was pretty funny to me at the time, and I got to share the story of the last time I had fell down the stairs. Ghettos and stairways are not a good combination for me, apparently. Anyway, we walked home and I iced it with a couple frozen hamburgers, sleeping with it elevated on a pillow. We went to get me an elastic bandaid the next morning and after wearing it for a couple days, it feels way better. It doesn't even hurt anymore, but I'm still being careful and wearing the bandage. Moral of the story: I'm glad I have ankles I can sprain.

We had the ward Christmas party this Saturday, which was much better than expected.

I'm running out of time. ... in more ways than just email. hahaha

Well, thanks for updating me on my bank balance. I'm going to Lisbon today to get some last-minute stuff. I'm pretty sure this is my last real P-day, seeing as next week's is the day before I leave.

gotta go I LOVE YOU GUYS

Elder Lobo

Baby Calvin

Dec 7 -- from Lisbon

Hey everybody!

It was surprising to hear that baby Calvin already made his grand appearance! [Born Sunday at 2:45 -- all are doing well!!!] It sounds like he just couldn't wait. That's pretty cool. I hope everything is going well now and he's enjoying his first couple days on Planet Earth. Dark hair, eh? I love how my fat head was the reference for comparison. Hahaha I hope everything keeps going well.

Well, I just spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to send pictures from this internet café computer, but I couldn't find a way to do it. It won't read my card, nor my dvd's. Oh well.

This week has been interesting. We got a reference from the wife of the bishop who has a stack of copies of the Book of Mormon on the counter of her store. It's pretty funny how differently people react to something when they realize that there are no strings attached. I'm pretty sure people think we have some personal motive when we talk to them. He's kind of an older guy, but he grabbed the Book of Mormon for himself, so he has a pretty interesting attitude about it. It's so cool how much of a difference it makes when people investigate and experiment for themselves without having to be convinced to just give it a shot. It's just a book, for crying out loud, not a handgrenade!

Thanks for the extra money! I'm considering getting a new carry-on bag (realizing that I'm going to have to drag one all over the horrible Paris airport). I'm going to try to use most of it here. I still want to get a laptop and do a lot of shopping while I am in sales-tax-free Oregon, and I don't know how that all is going to be financed if not by you guys. :)

Well, I'm running out of time. Today is the last day of the transfer, and we still don't know what's going on, but I'm betting on staying, and good grief, if I have to move again, I'll be a little cheesed. Every time I leave people it sucks just a little bit more out of me. I'm pretty sure it has the same effect on other people, too, because when they find out I'm leaving soon it completely changes how they act. That's one of the first things they ask missionaries when they get into the area: how much time do you have on the mission? It's like checking somebody's price tag.

Well, the computer just told me I have a minute left, so I'm going to just send this.

I love you guys!

Thanks for everything!

Elder Lobinho

ELDER vs. WILD

I've been slacky posting Christian's emails! Here's his latest one....he's almost done! He'll be home Dec 22. Holy cow!

----------------------------------------------

Hey everybody!

Holy goodness! I loved today's emails. It's good to see that thanksgiving went well on all sides of the world and that BYU still had a puff of steam to beat Utah. I had no idea I was flying home with Coombs! Cool stuff. I loved the pictures of Preston -- it's good to know he's finally let chocolate into his life. Tough luck with the corolla, Dad. I'm not complaining, though. It'll be weird being in an automatic. I've only seen two or three of them here. (I still haven't received my portuguese driver's license...)

Well, this last week, we all had interviews on Wednesday, and overall everything went pretty well. We had family night Friday night, which turned into another coloring party -- we had Mo Tab Christmas music playing and colored a bunch of different things. The idea was to draw your favorite scripture story and share how it has helped you along in life, and there were great drawings from Jesus walking on the water to the tree of life, but a couple people must not have been paying attention and drew aliens attacking New York City and a tornado sucking up a cow. It was really fun.

Saturday morning, I woke up pretty sick, so we stayed in. I slept forever, took good care of myself, drank lots of liquids, blah blah blah so don't worry. I wasn't better Sunday, either, so I decided not to risk terrorizing anybody with the notion of Gripe A (swine flu) having them see me sick. I didn't have any chills or fever or anything, so I'm pretty sure it was just your run-of-the-mill disease. Here I am today... functional, coherent, wearing a scarf (because it's not femmy to wear scarves here), and enjoying the relatively frigid weather.

Oh -- our thanksgiving here was rather pathetic (but I prefer the term "simple"). We got together with the elders from Costa da Caparica and had Stove Top stuffing, mashed potatoes, pão de queijo (which is grounds for starting a pão de queijo tradition for thanksgiving), and chicken parts that totally didn't work out. We went to go do some "thanksgiving", as Ariana had mentioned to me, and we went visiting some members. That was when we ran into a guy named Manuel who joined the church several years ago but ended up letting day-to-day life get the best of him. Now that he has kids, it's kind of snapped him back into reality, and he supposedly went to church yesterday and brought his kids with him (I don't know -- we weren't there...). Moral of the story: no matter how busy you are, working to make your life worthwhile takes some reprioritization.

It's crazy to think that this is my fourth-to-last P-day, and everybody keeps telling me "you're the one that's going home, so we'll do whatever you want to do," but I have no idea what else to do here in Lisbon. We went to Palácio de Ajuda last week and also saw an art museum inside, and it was pretty cool, but a little ridiculous. I'm getting pretty desperate to find cool things that I haven't seen yet. I'm still not sure what's going to happen during my last two weeks (a new transfer starts two weeks before I leave), and we know that more missionaries are going home this time than coming in. Hopefully I don't have to move anywhere because a wheel on one of my bags busted off this last time -- it's the cobblestone -- it's like dragging your luggage down the stairs no matter where you walk.

I read Acts while I was sick on Saturday, and it was pretty cool to read at this point in my mission. I remembered times when I felt like I was right there with Paul. I got a completely different perspective of the rest of the New Testament -- those epistles seem like their weekly emails home. Not to try to compare myself with them or anything, but I wonder if they fail to write down as much stuff that happens as I do. There's a lot of stuff that I don't even know how to record. It's cool to have the apostles back nowadays.

It's weird being with missionaries that have so little time in the mission. If I mention anything about what I'm going to do when I get home or anything, they all instantly start daydreaming, and I instantly start laughing. No matter how much or how little results from my time here in Monte da Caparica, it would be good to know I had a good effect on them.

Anyway, rock on, everybody. I love you guys.

Beijinhos

Elder Lobo

Persistence

Bom dia, everybody

Well, I'm working on my picture DVD's right now, so I'm going to be jumping back and forth, so I apologize if I'm any more incoherent than usual.

Thanks for the news from everybody. It's cool to hear that things are going well and that everything that isn't going well is at least going.

Well, we've been working pretty closely with a couple familes. Delfim's kids understand what we teach pretty quickly and have incredible questions. It's amazing what things kids understand that adults seem to forget. It's really cool to see the Gospel take place in peoples' lives. Like Christ said, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. I'm not much of a breadmaker, but what I understand from that is that the quantity isn't as important as actually having it. Sicknesses have symptoms, but good things also have symptoms, too. When you can see people relax and pay more attention to each other, it's a good sign.

We've been persistent with a less-active sister who has been having a lot of turbulence in her life. We were going to go visit a hilarious guy we met on the street who ended up not being home (I didn't find it hilarious, but life goes on), but then we decided to go back to where we came to visit this Maria Mendes. We found her and her 9-year-old son at home, and right away, I could tell something was wrong. You would have to be pretty dense to not realize something was wrong: her son was on the couch crying and her face was not a happy one. After a while talking with her, she had explained in wonderful detail her problem with her ex-husband and how it was affecting her son more than her. I wanted to talk to him, he and I walked 7 feet over into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I tried to talk to him, but it wasn't working. I then realized, once again, "why in the world am I trying to convince him to be happy when I can just make him happy myself?" So, we played with a ball and took goofy pictures on the laptop (provided by the school) and realized that everything would be OK.

I think I've gone through most of my mission trying to help people with words.

Anyway, it's been interesting lately. We're planning a lot of different things to get people to give what we have a shot. We've been focusing a lot on the practical uses of the Book of Mormon, basically that part that says, "If you don't believe me, believe in Christ, and if you believe in Christ, you'll believe me." If somebody reads it with the intent of reading the whole book, there is no way they'll regret it.

Well, I'm gonna go.

Love to all and to all a wonderful week

Elder Lobo

Conferencetasticness

Elder Hatch and I with a big ol cruise ship

Ad at a bus stop - "thousands of clotheslines with underwear that drips like a fiend"

Hey everybody!

Thanks a ton for the emails and adjusting to the Monday P-day. It hasn't really been a huge adjustment, but this last week has been kinda crazy. We had zone conference on Tuesday and then General Conference this weekend.

General conference was SO GOOD. Holy cow. We watched the Saturday morning session live at 5 PM here, and that one was so good I didn't see how it could get any better. Elder Bednar said some of the same things he told us -- about consistency and integrity. He even told us about that painting in his office. I absolutely loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk about charity, since the last few zone conferences have left my head spinning. The thing I liked the most that he said was that "love is the measure of our faith". Later on, with Elder Oak's talk basically about how God doesn't look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, it was good to remember what Elder Uchtdorf said, that of all the shoulds and should nots, if we focus on love, everything else will fall into place. Sometimes it's unclear to me whether it matters more to do something with a bad attitude or to maintain a good attitude and be OK with wherever that leads you. If I had heard the same things last year, I think I would be completely baffled and confused, but now I have just a little bit more experience with this whole "life" thing that I can see my way through the ideology down to the reality of what they were talking about. I'm still sorting through it in my head.

This conference came at a good time for me. There's been a big conflict in my brain between doing what I think is right and doing what others tell me to be right. There's also another big conflict in my brain between doing "my best" and "not running faster than I have strength". Over the last year, it's woken me up a lot inside to think for myself, and it seems like most of this kind of discussion is a semantic waste of time between oversensitive consciences. There's a lot more to be done than there is to be said, but how we feel about what we do can weigh just as heavily on our minds as the results of our actions.

I really liked Elder Christofferson's talk, as well. Merely wanting to do something isn't entirely sound rationale to do it. But still, that depends on how you define "want": I think he was talking about something like, "merely [being capable of enjoying] something isn't entirely sound rationale to do it. Having a partial understanding of our own desires confuses us.

A lot of the doctrinal debate and discussion we have needs better-defined terms. We throw around a lot of simple words that have a completely different meanings to different people.

In comparison to my experiences with previous conferences, this one was really good, and it's informing me sufficiently to help me make decisions. Before, it was like high school -- just sucking in the information to turn it back on the teacher at the test to show I knew what was going on. But, like President Monson said, learning is not just to "pour information into our minds". It's not enough to have awareness of Gospel principles. Awareness is only half of it. It's pretty easy to be like that one octopus in the Nature "Sea of Cortez" documentary I absolutely LOVED, "He's bitten off more than he can chew." It doesn't matter how much of the Gospel you can stuff into your face if you can't chew it.

And HOW ABOUT THAT ELDER HOLLAND??? I absolutely LOVED that talk.

Could somebody send me the talks in English on an MP3 cd (they should all fit on one CD) Making the CD as an MP3 CD is different than making a regular CD -- You can fit the whole conference on one CD instead of seven. Thanks a ton.

I hope everything goes well with everybody and that Dad has fun making COMPUTER TAQUITOS! Hahahaha

Oh yeah, "whitewashing" is when both companions are new to the area.


OUT OF TIME

LOVE YOU
CHURCH IS TRUE

ELDER LOBO

SURPRISE!!!

Hey everybody!

Surprise! P-day is now Monday! Yep. We found out last week after P-Day. With all the changes that have been going on, we had been joking that the only thing left to change was P-day, but I guess the joke's on us!

Anyway,

This week has been pretty decent, all in all. With starting the area from scratch, we've been visiting all the members we can find, and we've started visiting one of the families pretty frequently. The father, Delfim, is a member, but the rest of the family isn't. We went by on Friday and made cheesecake for them, and it's really opened them up. It's pretty funny -- I thought cheesecake would be something like "bolo de queijo" or something like that, but nope, it's "cheesecake" (pronounced like "sheez-KEK". weird.).

I don't have time to send pictures right now -- this internet café we're using is taking a little getting used to. There are only four computers, and I have about 10 minutes left.

It's pretty cool to see Preston going to town on those shelves. I've still got my IKEA catalog that I look through every once in a while.

We're not relly sure what we're going to do for P-day today. I've already seen everything in my DK Lisbon tourist guide. We were going to go walk on the aqueduct today, but we found out that you can't walk on it unless escorted because of some crazy murderer in 1853 who would throw people off. So we're loking for ideas, still.

In going by members on our ward list, we've only found two so far that have died, only a few who have moved, and surprisingly a lot at home. In most of my other wards, lots of people had either moved or died.

OH, I remembered this a few weeks ago, but when I applied for my Portuguese drivers License, they took my Oregon one from me. Is it possible for you to go to the DMV and request a copy without me being there, or do I have to do that when I get back? Does it take a long time? I don't remember if the government is as unbelievably slow there as it is here. (I still haven't actually received my license yet, and I applied for it a year ago.)

Anyway, I'm out of time. I'll go on a quest for a better internet café when I get the chance.

Tchauzinhos

Elder Lobo

Hey everybody!

I don't have a whole ton of time this time, but I can send pictures, so according to that saying, I am sending you an extra 2000 words in attachment.

Thanks for the news! The news about the BYU - Florida State game wasn't too surprising, but oh well. 7 games against high school football teams later and we might have another good game to watch at the end of the year.

The adjustment to the new area has been a little difficult. We live 20-30 minutes away from the ward boundaries. We're basically starting from scratch, except that I know some of the members and how to get around. We visited a part-member family that hasn't been to church in a while, and it was pretty interesting. They have two kids, and I spent most of my time keeping them busy so we could talk to their dad. I usually carry some paper and markers with me, and it worked out pretty well. I got the 4-year-old kid to be coloring at the table and kept pulling faces at his older brother so he would calm down. Everybody was smiling by the end, and we're going back on Friday to make cheesecake with them.

It's crazy, though, Elder Silva can get on the phone or start a conversation with just about anybody and it usually works out pretty well. There's just something about not speaking perfect Portuguese that people seem to not like so much when I call them. Oh well, ainda bem.

We're focusing on strengthening the members in the ward. Elder Silva was blown away when we went knocking the first time -- he wasn't used to people being so rough with him. He had only been in very calm areas far from Lisbon and, on top of it all, he's from Porto up north, where the people are apparently much more civilized.

Gotta go catch the metro (subway)

I love you guys and thanks for the updates

Beijinhos,

Elder Lobo

Back to the A's

Hey everybody!

I loved the emails this week. Thanks for the update about the BYU blowout. I heard Tulane was supposed to be decent, but I guess that was a mistake. Florida State should be a really cool game -- Elder Golden is going to Florida State when he gets back, so I'm pretty excited to see what happens.

Thanks for the extra money, Dad!

Anyway,

OH MY GOODNESS crazy news:

So this week is transfers, and I found out from Elder Croshaw on Monday that I'm being transferred, but GET THIS: I'm being transferred to the other ward in our building (Ala 2). According to what he told me, Presidente Torgan wants the AP's (Elder Croshaw and Elder Jasche, Brazilian) to have more members to work with. So Elder Hatch is going up to Torres Vedras to "whitewash". I'll be "whitewashing", too. Olivais is being absorbed by the AP's. I'll still be meeting in the same building, but just with the other ward. I'll be switching houses with the AP's, who live right by the Sete Rios train station at:

Rua Filipe de Mata
Nº124, R/C Dtº
1600-073 Lisboa

I'll be serving with Elder Silva, who is from Gaia, up north, and I hear he doesn't speak any English. He's also at least 27 years old, so it will be interesting.

My area will be called "Alvalade", since it includes Alvalade, Areeiro, Campo Pequeno, and some other parts of Lisbon down to Saldanha, west from Entrecampos.

Olivais was my first area that wasn't touching my others, but this new one fills in the gap. (The ward boundaries of Lisbon Ala (ward) 1 and Almada touch each other in the middle of the river.)

I'm much better friends with the members in Ala 2, where I'm going, because more of them come to our weekly ward family night than from Ala 4. This is the ward in which I also play piano on Sundays.

A lot of really weird stuff has been going on with transfers. There are a bunch of areas that are getting "whitewashed" that were doing really well. The financial secretary area is now Amadora (ALL of Amadora and Queluz, which used to have 8 missionaries). There's almost no trace of President Terry anymore, and I still don't understand the necessity of all this change.

I really liked that article that Mom sent me written by Orson Scott Card. I completely agree with him. Since Presidente Torgan got here, we've been getting a ton of pressure to trick members and investigators into giving references to us so we can get baptisms. A lot of stuff we have been taught to do really doesn't sit well with me at all. For example, we're supposed to do the "Family Mission Plan", which is actually where we ask members for names of friends so we can say some special prayer for them, and in so doing we're supposed to get their addresses and start teaching them, too. I haven't been able to stomach that with any member yet.

In the last few months, I've focused a whole lot more on doing unspeakable things (things that aren't just words). It's been cool to develop real friendships with people, members and investigators, but NOT cool to get ripped out of them after just a few weeks. I'm much more focused now on quality than quantity, and I really don't appreciate my environment to be ever more hostile to my behavior. Numbers will never make Portugal a better place to be a member of the church.

What is "the church", anyway? In reality, I see it to be the people. In abstract, it's the doctrine. Like Orson Scott Card said (could somebody do me a favor and see how much it costs to order books in Portugal Portuguese on the internet?), teaching lessons in members' houses isn't what helps, it's the friendship. You could talk about the plan of salvation on the bus with a member and it would still be effective -- it's not like teaching lessons in the member's house is the "key" and then suddenly God takes over and makes the person get baptized because you taught a lesson with some walls around you. There's a view in the mission and in the church here that "that's just how it's supposed to be done", and it's robotic and not real. The push to "be right" and live up to being in the only true church shoves people onto a conveyor belt of lifeless, robotic thought and behavior. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not about being right. It's not even about right and wrong. It's about being happy according to our true natures. Living a celestial life isn't about thinking you keep the commandments better than everybody else, it's about living a life where you would be the happiest forever if you were in the presence of God. Right now, we have bodies and are trying to figure out what in the world to do with them, but we would all be happier if we became more like Christ in nature, not just analyzed his footsteps and tiptoed behind him. The Gospel takes very little analyzation. It's about nature. More than that, it's about finding out what your true nature is. We can often think that the "natural" man, the enemy to God, curses our life into being a game of avoiding evil, but in thinking that way, we may lose sight of having our nature changed towards pursuing what we see to be good by our own free will. Being a member of the church doesn't mean that you give up your agency, like signing a contract and just having to obey to whatever is written (who interprets it, anyway?). You never give up your agency. That's the greatest gift God has yet given us. We're here to learn how to pursue happiness. Life isn't about coloring within the lines, and the church isn't merely a "true" set of lines to color within. It's so much more than that. The church on Sunday is not just to do everything you're supposed to do (classes, sacrament, talks, blahblahblah), it should be a place where you can benefit if you want to. How? According to your answers to that question I asked, serving and being served: Charity, basically. The truth of the church in the abstract is absolute and unchangeable, but the truth of the church in reality depends upon us and how true we are to God, to each other, and to ourselves.

I hope I explained that effectively. I hate words.

Thanks a ton for everything!

Love,

Elder Lobo

It finally rained!

Hey everybody!

This morning, I woke up about 15 minutes before the alarm to some giant explosions coming from the backyard. I thought it was the garbage man or something, but they come at about 12 or 1 in the morning, so it was too late to be them. Then there were a bunch of flashes all over the place, and I finally realized what in the world was going on. Not only was it raining for the first time in months, there was a huge thunderstorm going by. So I wandered around the room in the dark looking for my tripod to get pictures, and Elder Hatch mumbled out a "what in the world are you doing?" I was so focused on finding my tripod that the only thing I could get to come out of my mouth was "tripod... where's my tripod?" I eventually found it, set up the camera in the window, and set it on long exposure and got some really cool pictures of lightning and the buildings. There's a book I almost bought that had a really cool picture of the Vasco da Gama bridge with lightning behind it, but now I don't really feel the desire to buy that book anymore.

As for the rest of the week:

A member told me on Sunday that BYU had won, and I didn't believe him. He's kind of a jokester anyway (his name is Franciel, but everybody calls him Linguiça, which is a kind of sausage). Crazy. It sounds like this opening week was crazy. Pancadas

We taught Benvinda a couple times this week with Bispo Artur, and OH MY GOODNESS. He loves to talk. I have never met anybody who can talk so much. I don't like to talk to myself with somebody in front of me -- I prefer to talk with somebody. Bispo, however, talked from basically the moment we got in to the moment we left, and it was all over the place. Everything from how the Igreja Universal is full of evil spirits to what your body will look like in the resurrection. It was very out of control, but somehow that seems to have worked out OK, because Benvinda is thinking about getting baptized before she goes to Angola in a few weeks. All she has to do is just have a couple more lessons with us and go to church. There's a certain kind of persuasive, smooth-talking capability that some people have over others that I just don't have.

We also visited a brazilian family who moved from Barreiro recently to our ward. Ivanildo, his wife, and their 8-year-old daughter Lorena. Lorena is absolutely HILARIOUS. She reminds me a lot of Katie (Katiebugs). We had a family night about eternal families where she cut and colored every member of their family from construction paper and we "sealed" them together with superglue that had "Templo" written on it in Sharpie. Ivanildo is the administrator of a RIDICULOUSLY nice apartment building in Parque das Nações. Their house has AC, a REAL water heater, a dishwasher, motorized persianas (they're like blast shields over the windows - everybody has them), and a pretty nice kitchen -- and he lives there for free!. They're a great addition to the ward.

I really enjoyed the responses to my question about the most beneficial and fulfilling parts of being in your respective wards. I had a hunch the responses would be something like that, falling into two categories: being served and serving. It seems like they go together, and they happen naturally when everybody actually cares.

It's been a little slow, otherwise, seeing as most of our members still haven't returned from vacation, or at least it seems that way from the number of people in sacrament meeting on Sunday. Elder Croshaw and Elder Bass spent a week in the Azores for a zone conference and some divisions with people, so it was pretty quiet.

I've been casually thinking a bit about optometry and opthamology and all that stuff, and the more I analyze it, the more I think that optometry is right for me. I work to live -- I don't live to work. I've never really been so sucked into something that I would want to do it for the rest of my life, but optometry embodies a ton of principles and topics that I really enjoy. It's not so much about what I do, but the process of how I do it. It's something that seems stimulating and broad enough to be stimulating, but it's also simple enough that it won't consume my life. Some people have ADD, but I think I have the opposite -- I can't really multitask in life. I have a really hard time zoning out on something or somebody unless something else captures my attnetion. I like the idea of optometry because I want to help people, but I don't want my success to depend on them (like teaching). I want to help people who want to be helped, and I don't want to try to convince people to want something they don't. Optometry sounds really cool -- it's still a scientific process, but it's in a personal environment. It's not robotic like working at a desk, nor is it completely subjective like teaching, but it's objective and subjective at the same time. I'm a very subjective person, but I like doing objective things. I really like it. Plus, I like the idea of studying at Pacific University because I want to stay in Oregon or Washington. I'll be able to figure all that out later, but it's cool that all this has suddenly opened up in my brain as an option I really like.

It's been fun to have a working oven in our house. We've been making cookies like crazy for people and for activities. We take some with us when we go to visit members. I gave a lesson yesterday in District Meeting about the Plan of Salvation, consisting of playing the CES Fireside talk by Elder Bednar from last May, and while he was talking I mixed chocolate chip cookie dough on a table in front of everybody. "A spirit hath not [the ability to mix chocolate chip cookie dough] as ye see me have" (Luke 24:39). There are just some experiences that you need a body for, and when we understand that, the Plan of Salvation makes a lot more sense.

We had a less-active member show up to English class yesterday. She had talked to us a few weeks ago while we were doing internet, asking if we still did English classes Tuesdays and Fridays at 8 PM. We replied in the affirmative, but unfortunately hadn't heard or seen anything of her since -- until last night. She's returning to activity, and she seems to enjoy English class. We started doing it in the chapel (to facilitate giving chapel tours to non-members), simply using a chalkboard in front of the chairs. We don't have benches -- I've never had a chapel that actually had benches here, but I know of a couple that have benches. Anyway, a little "I am a Child of God" or even a practice run of "Carol of the Bells" later, and we have our Ukranian friend Nikolai listening to some scriptures, which he didn't like before. Music is awesome. There's so much more to life than just words.

The man cave looks pretty cool. It's hard not to call our house the "man cave" sometimes -- I don't think I'll ever live in a house in a condition anything like the houses I've lived in. Sometimes it feels like living in an abandoned house, even like camping indoors, if that makes sense. You are one with nature.

Speaking of being one with nature, we found a gecko on the ceiling of our room last night, and I caught it and took some pictures. It was really small, luckily, because the big ones are ridiculously fast.

Oh well.

Every truly good desire we can have in life is dependent upon the Gospel. Without it, it's impossible.

Love to all, and to all a good morning.

Elder Lobo

Note the question at the end...

(I can't figure out how to flip this picture...sorry it's like looking in a mirror and the words are backwards) :)
Hey everybody,

Thanks a ton for the emails, advice, and info. I got a letter from Sister Hoeppner today, and her second sentence made me laugh a little bit: "I understand you'll be coming home soon." I really appreciated the letter, and that little big detail really is starting to sink in.

My birthday went well. I met up with António Fragoso from Almada in Parque das Nações right by the Torre Vasco da Gama. He gave me an AWESOME t-shirt and we had a really good time talking. Also, we had a lesson with a recent convert's mother who has some general curiosity about the church, all of her children go to different churches, and she wants to understand a little better why this one seems so different to her. Her name, if I'm not mistaken, is Benvinda, which basically means "welcome".

By the way, apparently Presidente Torgan changed his mind about Dec 17 -- we had interviews on Friday, and I told him how it didn't really matter to me when I got back as long as I had time to get ready, plus I already have a flight on Dec 29, so he changed it to Dec 22. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's a monday or something like that. I'll have Christmas Sunday in Portugal, so maybe the other ward will have a pianist for that sacrament meeting. I can play some mean Christmas tunes every once in a while.

I listened to a talk by John Bytheway last week that Elder Hatch got for his birthday called "Jesus Knows I'm a Christian". It embodies everything I have learned since leaving Almada, but I hadn't really put it into words as well as he did. It's a talk that answers, in a roundabout way, the idea that some people have that we aren't Christian. Now, I don't know if many other people can relate to this like I can, but my name is Christian (but for right now, it's Elder, hahaha). Some people in high school used to think it was funny that my name was Christian because I'm a member of this church, which in their minds makes me non-Christian. ANYWAY, so this talk addressed one of the ideologies I've never really understood, being the one derived from 2 Nephi 25:23, where it says, "by grace ye are saved, after all ye can do." We talk a lot about faith and works, partially because it's good to work hard -- we're happier and we become better if we keep ourselves close to Christ and the Spirit. But it's possible for us to believe whole-heartedly that we do "our part" and then Jesus fills in the gap. Brother Bytheway investigated that "gap", and it matches up with how my understanding of the Plan of Salvation (the Plan of Happiness, rather) has gained new depth and dimension:

Basically, we're not here just to be saved. A big part of being here is choosing to come unto Christ by faith, repentance, baptism, and confirmation, but the rest of our journey we can't do alone. Ether 12:27 says something like "If men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble, for my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, for if men humble themselves before me and have faith in me, then will I (the Lord) make weak things become strong unto them." A huge part of being in this life is to learn lessons that we can only learn here, and in that perspective, merely being saved is only a small part. Christ's journey to atonement not only allows us to be saved, but it allows Him to "succor his people, according to the flesh". He has the power to change us, we have the power to believe in Him and learn. There is so much that is out of our control but is completely in His.

While I was on a division with Elder McClean, who is in his first transfer, we taught a lesson to an AMAZING investigator about the Plan of Salvation. I haven't met an investigator like him since Miguel in Amadora. We had a very valuable conversation about the Plan of Salvation, not by just going through the steps and where we are and what we have to do, but why in the world we do it all in the first place. I had never taught the Plan of Salvation like that, and it's something you can't usually do with new missionaries (because of the MTC robot mode they're in), but we had a genuinely significant conversation with this guy. There is no point in learning about the Plan of Salvation if you're just learning it for the details.

We also talked to a member this week whose 17-year-old son went off the deep end recently (basically went from being awesomely active to angrily antagonistic). I had met him last year, and I even remember his name: José Miguel. We had been teaching the Plan of Salvation, and for the first time, I didn't have the anxiety to provide some quick fix for him. We talked about how there are some lessons that we have to learn, and if we are really seeking to be happy, we will inevitably be guided to the Gospel and trust in Christ. It takes one kind of faith to try to convince somebody that they can get their son to come back, but it takes something so much deeper to be able to trust that everything will be OK and never to stop loving that son. I'm a firm believer in patience now, and also that being Christlike has longer-lasting consequences than just telling others to be Christlike.

We had a family night last week, and Elder Hatch and I were in charge. The family nights in the past weeks have been just reading scriptures and debates, and they were beneficial, but seemed to be very argumentative and frustrating for the people there. So, we decided to change things up a little bit, and maybe this will illustrate the change in perspective I'm having:

After Christ gave the sermon on the mount and said so many words, he expressed his compassion in 3 Nephi 17. We talked about his words to "prepare your minds" for what he would say the next day. We told everybody to prepare their minds for what we were about to do. We went into the kitchen and all worked together to make chocolate chip cookies. It was the happiest I have ever seen those people, and it's the best I have ever seen them get along with each other. When all the cookies were made, we had the cooled ones on a plate and realized that we had just enough for the kids outside playing soccer, so we took that plate out for them. That felt real. That was real.

There's a huge difference between just being convinced that you're in the right church and living the teachings in such a way that you know you couldn't want it any other way.

The church here needs a huge boost, not in testimony, but in lifestyle. There is too much talking of the path and not enough walking on the path, and the only way I have been able to help others start walking on the path is to walk with them, not talk with them. Knocking and contacting are great, but they're not enough on their own. Looking like good missionaries by doing hard work is not as effective as loving the people.

My goal before I leave is to give the ward the vitality it needs. We taught an investigator who refuses to get baptized until he knows with perfect clarity that it's the right choice, but he just hasn't understood that it's not about perfect knowledge.

Maybe it's european culture or something -- I don't know.

I made a connection this week between economics and missionary work I find very valuable. Many people claim that the stable growth of the USA during the 90's was because of Bill Clinton, and others claim it was a consequence of the "supply-side economics" of Ronald Reagan. I don't believe there's a sure way to claim what the cause was, but supply-side economics definitely had an impact. In times of mission crisis, do we rely on artificial stimulus packages (do more contacts, teach more lessons, baptize more people) or do we invest in the supply side of the church (activities, improve the quality of Sunday meetings, make home teaching and visiting teaching a staple of life, etc)? I see now that what Lisbon needs the most is not to increase the size of the church but to build the integrity of what is already there. Have you ever heard of a ward with a 3% activity rate? There are a lot of people ready to come back to church on Sunday, but there's something missing from Sunday that keeps them from enjoying the Gospel in their lives the rest of the week.

Anyway,

I'm going to get some pictures printed and some DVD's made to send home -- I have 7 GB of pictures not on DVD's yet, so that'll be another two installments of The Elder Lobo Photo Project.

I have a question I'd like as many people to answer as possible:

What do you find most beneficial and fulfilling about being a member of your ward?

I love you guys.

Elder Lobo

From Elder Lobo

Hey everybody!

Thanks for the emails and everything, once again. Thanks for the dinheiro! I'm really excited to get some good keepsakes. I got a book for myself for my birthday called "Lisboa Panoramas". It's a picture book, basically, but it has a ton of pictures I tried really hard to take but couldn't because of my camera and not being able to take pictures while proselyting. It's a really good flavor of the Lisbon I know, and I've been to all the places in the book but two or three. You can even see the house in Almada in a few pictures! It's cool. I'm also thinking about getting some custom azulejos done, and I'm thinking I'll get the Greg Olsen Lehi's Dream done.

Elder Hatch deixou de ser teenager today. We're having a churrasco at the chapel and playing some super awesome volleyball (we're not allowed to play soccer anymore).

Oh, last week we went to Belém for P-Day and went to the Ultramar memorial. It looks REALLY COOL. Look it up. I don't know exactly what the battle of ultramar or whatever was, but they made a memorial for it with the names of all the people that died. There were only two people with the name of Lobo, and only one had it has his last name: Manuel Pereira Lobo, and he was a 1st Sargeant. I got a picture with his name on the wall.

The work has been really slow here thanks to a lot of different factors. A lot of our members are still on vacation (along with the rest of the city) and it's been really hard to find people that aren't tourists. But we've been trying to get creative. There's a ton more pressure for numbers now with Presidente Torgan than with President Terry -- we didn't have any baptisms as a zone this week, so we're supposed to baptize somebody this Saturday. We're looking...

My plans for tomorrow include going out to lunch with António Fragoso from Almada (he works in Parque das Nações at the courts), teaching the mother of a recent convert, and eating dinner with a member family I haven't met yet (they just got back from vacation).

In reflecting over the year, I remember how I felt on my birthday last year when I played tennis. It was one of the few times I had felt like a real human being on the mission. It's been a gradual process breaking out of the robot personality that was infused into me at the MTC, and now the phrase in Preach My Gospel that basically says that sharing the gospel will come more naturally in relationships of care and trust, or something like that. I can't do robotic missionary work anymore, and even though my numbers aren't as inflated as they used to be, the effects I have been producing are much more real and lasting. We've had a lot of pressure recently to get numbers, and it's been pretty frustrating for a lot of people. The best thing about being a missionary is being a genuine human being with other people. Slapping on a fake smile doesn't convince anybody.

Well, I'm running out of time and I can't remember everything I was going to say, but I hope everybody has a wonderful time and that everything goes well.

I hope everybody follows Christ because they want to, not just because they're supposed to. (I'm the post man, doin' what I'm 'post to!)

Abraços!

Thanks for everything!

Elder Lobo

More from Elder Lobo....(sorry, been neglecting the blog lately!)

FYI -- His new address is:

Elder Christian Lobo
Rua 6, Nº 20
Bairro de Encarnação
1800 Lisboa
PORTUGAL

He'll be coming home December 17th!! They are letting a group of missionaries come home a month early so they will be in time to start the Winter 2010 semester at BYU (otherwise they'd miss it by just 2 weeks.) He'll be home for Christmas!! :)

BTW, Elder Lobo's birthday is this week -- Aug 27th! Send him an email!! elderlobo@myldsmail.net and wish him a happy birthday. His P-day is Wednesday, so if you send an email by Tuesday night, he'll get it first thing in the morning.

-Ariana

------------------------------------------------------------

Hey everybody!

Thanks for filling me in on everything going on. It's crazy to hear about all the stuff going on with everybody. Good stuff, crazy stuff, it's all good to know. It reminds me of driving with Elder Barrett while I was in the office and he turned the wrong way down a one-way street -- there is so much stuff that happens and I just kind of roll with it now.

Well, it's been a very different week this week. Living on the ground (instead of floating 16 stories up in the air) presents a whole different lifestyle. For instance, Elder Hatch and I walked in one night to a ginormous trail of ants. One lint roller and some sprays of AJAX later, we were back to life as usual.

Serving here has made me ask myself a lot, "What in the world do missionaries in the States do to find people?" Olivais is the most US-like place I've set foot on in Portugal. The only difference is that here we only have about 30 active members. It's a completely different dynamic than any other area I have served in. We're having to get really creative in ways to talk to people. For instance, yesterday we made a big sign to hold that says in Portuguese, "Have you ever asked yourself 'why?'" I think it'll be good because it causes people to come talk to us, often asking "why what?" "Oh, why am I here... etc." We're experimenting with having people come talk to us instead of hunting them down ourselves.

I met Orlando last week for the first time -- he's awesome. He is very well-integrated conceptually into the Gospel -- he speaks and understands the lingo, and that surprised me. It's a significant indicator when somebody starts using terms like "Heavenly Father" or "Atonement". He's been working on Sundays, but he's going to have two Sundays free a month starting this Sunday. He's a blast to talk to and really absorbs what we teach. He's currently renting a room from a guy named Zé who is, as Elder Hatch says, "permafried". Imagine a guy whose brain has been completely scrambled by just about anything you can find under the kitchen sink try to talk, and you have just heard Zé. Unlike Orlando, he doesn't absorb just about anything anymore.

I ran into Willian Rau after English class yesterday -- he's from the ward I served in when I was in the office. Either he changed a lot or I changed a lot since the last time I saw him -- I could keep up with everything he said (he talks really quickly), and it was a lot of fun to see him and talk to him again.

I got the birthday package from Ariana yesterday -- I'm saving it for my birthday so it will have something special about it. It's crazy to think that my birthday is next week. It was just a month ago that I realized I was going to have my birthday so soon.

What else...

They had me play piano for the other ward that meets in our building because they don't have anybody that plays. It's really bizarre to me -- that ward has about 20 active people and ours has about 40 but we meet at the same time in the same building but separate.

On that note, because of the high number of unactive people, we mapped out every member in the ward and started visiting everybody. We do the five rotating names here, too, but we've been focusing more on it. It's helped me get to know the area quickly and MAN there are so many people that need to come back. Most of the people on the list, however, have either died or moved. Very few of them are still living when it says they are living. We visited one old lady who didn't even remember who the elders were. There was another lady out doing yardwork when we rang the doorbell in the apartment building who told us that nobody lived in that apartment. When the door buzzed open, we both looked back at her like, "oh really" and then she said that she was baptized 20 years before but they didn't want anything to do with the church anymore. But we're trying to find that little candle of desire hidden deep down inside. So far, we're still looking.

Oh, so the city is extending the metro (subway) line all the way from Oriente to the airport, and we're going to have a metro stop right by our house. We use the busses mostly, but once the metro line is done, it will be really nice.

I realized why you get carsick when you sit in the back of the bus, too: if you're behind the back wheels, when the bus turns right, you go left, and that movement doesn't match up with what you see, so it makes you carsick. That's my theory, at least, because when I sit back there I always get carsick. Bussick?

I had an idea the other day to find people to teach -- I'm going to get my hands on a phone book and pass by the any Lobo in our area. I've never met another Lobo here that I know of. It's a really uncommon name here, but I've seen it a couple times. There was a singer that came to Almada named Rita Lobo, but asking if we're related is like the classic question of "So are you related to Rebecca Lobo?"

Well, that's the news from here for the week. I love you all! Thanks for everything!

Congratulations Skyler and Tiffany!

They were married July 25th in the Boise Temple....My dad (Uncle Celso) was able to be there for the wedding and reception, and sent this picture. Enjoy!

OBRIGADO POR TUDO

Family!

It's crazy to hear about all the change going on at home and in the world -- from Michael Jackson to BYU lifting the ban on YouTube, it's getting a little unbelievable! Friday afternoon, a guy on the street stopped us randomly and tried really hard to tell us in English that Michael Jackson had died. I didn't really know whether to believe him or not, since people love kidding around with us, but with all the crazy stuff going on, I figured anything could be possible.

Everybody is retiring and getting married and going on big vacations and new mission presidents (He gets here tonight at 9:30). It seems like the only thing that DIDN'T change is the location of Elder Nielsen and I – I'm here until at least the beginning of August. America is getting one year older on Saturday and Nate the Neuron is having Christmas in July. It's bizarre – it's seriously Alice in Wonderland. There's a Portuguese guy next to me watching the Red Green Show... I seriously have no idea what to expect anymore!!!

Sam gets back this month, too! Good grief!

Anyway, since last week, we found a less active member named Cristina Faro who hadn't been to church in a year. I can't claim anything, but she said she had been missing the Church and had started looking at the bus schedules to see if it would work for her to go to church one of these days. We got into the front door of her building when an old lady let us in, and when we knocked on her door we found out that she wasn't going to answer when we rang her doorbell from outside. We got her a ride to church and she's doing pretty well. It's awesome. She retired early and does editing -- she's already edited 3 books and is working on her 4th and 5th. She takes care of her father at home who caused a lot of trouble for her, but we have some really awesome, focused lessons. She's loving coming back to church.

Remember Mesila, the inactive member from the Phillipines we found while knocking? She and another reasonably active member from the Phillipines named Rosemary both stopped answering our calls several weeks ago. We stopped by Rosemary's place yesterday, but she wasn't home, so we talked to her husband and two daughters – one of whom is a member but inactive. We had a pretty good conversation about life and the Plan of Salvation and then Rosemary walked in talking about how nobody was going to make it to the Celestial Kingdom because we all make mistakes and even Moses didn't make it and he only did one thing wrong oh man. It was pretty interesting.

Anyway, I'm basically out of time.

Amor para todos

Elder Lobo

Photos this week

Irmao Rozendo, one of my favorite people
in the whole wide world

Cutting up RIBS!

PAI DAY ON SUNDAY

View from Palacio de Seteais

Palacio de Monserrate

Hey everybody

It's ALEXANDER'S BIRTHDAY TODAY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEXANDER!!! You're almost double digits!

I got a letter from Brother Larimer yesterday and it's Christian Larimer's birthday, too! He was the best hangman player I've ever seen.

AND it's Father's Day this Sunday. Pai Day! Happy Father's Day, PAI!

Well, I'm attaching pictures from our trip to Sintra with António Fragoso last week. It was fantástico!

I really have no idea what I want to write about this week. There really hasn't been anything too extraordinary going on.

In an effort to not go so crazy and develop a little bit of patience, I decided to give the whole “art” thing a try. I bought some dry pastels a couple weeks ago, and those are pretty fun but aren't quite what I had in mind. I bought some oil pastels, which I really like, but it feels too much like I'm “coloring”, so I'm moving to different things. I'm dipping my toes into the world of paint, and I bought some tempera paints because they were cheap, but they're kindof a joke, so if anybody has some kind of expertise (ARIANA), I would appreciate some thoughts on the subject.

Valdino is doing just about as great as always. We made him a deal that if he didn't have work on Sunday we would come make breakfast at his house to get “despertado” (woken up) and psyched up for church. Within the last couple weeks, I've felt it's ridiculous to try to have what I see as a “professional” relationship with investigators. Reading and watching videos about Preach My Gospel makes it sound like investigators are machines and missionaries are machines, and you just have to get the right gear ratio or octane level and then people will suddenly do anything you tell them to do. But that's not the case.

The other people we're working with haven't been home, so there's not really much to talk about there.

I love you guys a ton

Beijos

Elder Lobo

X-Files

Hey everybody--

Sorry for the delay -- Yesterday was a holiday and our internet place was closed, it didn't work out to do email yesterday so here we are today.

We went to Sintra with António Fragoso to see Palacio de Monserrate (SO COOL). It was so unbelievably awesome.

We started teaching a young couple -- friends of Valdino -- and they are absolutely awesome. Wagner (Brazilian, plays guitar and sings for a living) and Patricia (Portuguese, nicest person I've ever met). We met them at Valdino's house and offered to teach them English. When we were teaching Valdino again, they showed up at his house again, and they had a bunch of questions and we taught the Plan of Salvation that we had colored and cut out with Valdino. We just taught them English and about the Restoration really quickly. Patricia asked something along the lines of, "so can you guys do my baptism or does it have to be somebody else?" She has absolutely incredible questions!!!

Anyway, things are well. It's been reallllly hard for me lately, but I just have to not worry so much. Even with tons of really good things happening it's somehow been really hard for me to maintain a positive attitude about my own efforts, and that affects everything I do and feel. It's not that I'm not focusing enough -- it's that I'm focusing too much. I guess that's why we have life to figure this kind of stuff out.

Beijos

Elder Lobo

Pasteis de Belem
Trainers and Trainees

Elders Kearl, me, Velasquez, and Walker
That's not how you treat my Oregon!!

HEY EVERYBODY

Thanks for the pictures and letting me know how everybody is doing!

I don't know what it is about the mission that does this, but you can go from the highest high one day to the lowest low the next, and then the next day things are low but you are high, and the day after things are high but you are low... It's insane.

I'm not exactly sure what I should choose to write about, but I think I should write about something I learned and how it has benefited the people we work with.

The recent CES Fireside where Elder Bednar talked about how Satan tries to get us to misuse or minimize the importance of our bodies has had a huge impact on our work. We realized that being a missionary of words isn't as great as we could be. For example, why just talk about the Plan of Salvation when you could have something interactive and tangible?

So we took some colored paper and markers to António Armada (recent convert) and Valdino (investigator) and we cut out and made the Plan of Salvation. We then reviewed what would happen to somebody's body and spirit from start to finish. By the end, they could explain everything exactly as it is. It was incredible, especially since both of them have had the Plan of Salvation “explained” several times, but could never explain it correctly without help.

I want to talk about the way Elder Bednar used the definition of truth: “things as they REALLY ARE and things as they REALLY WILL BE.”

Satan tries to get us immersed into a world of things “as they really are not”. Usually we think about that as the way he highlighted: false representations of reality. These are usually fantasy worlds or tools that are numbing and senseless.

But I wanted to talk about some counterfeits of reality that are traps I have experienced firsthand:

Things as they really MIGHT be
Things as they really COULD be
Things as they really SHOULD be
Things as they really WOULD be
Things as they really SHOULD HAVE BEEN

These do not fit anywhere into the definition of truth or reality as defined in Doctrine and Covenants by the Savior. Why are we so concerned about things as they really AREN'T or WON'T be? In the ways we think about the past, do we forget about reality?

Thinking in these ways won't produce results in reality because they themselves are not real!

I hope that my life can be some form of an example for people. Elder Baldwin taught me an alternative definition of the word “example”: instead of being something to try to pattern, an example can also be something we try not to repeat. For example, “don't make me make an example out of you!” Because of Elder Baldwin, I don't use a proselyting bag because I don't want to mess up my back and go home.

Thinking in the abstract is cool, but in the end, it's pretty much worthless. It's the same reason that “deep doctrine” does nothing for anybody.

How much of what we do now could be saved for the Spirit World when we don't have a body? How could we more appropriately take advantage of the mortal life in which we find ourselves?

What kinds of hobbies could we tune up or do away with to embrace the REAL reality in which we really live and breathe?

Enough words.

But like Elder Russell M Nelson said in conference, the three most meaningful words are:

I LOVE YOU.

Elder Lobo

The Unspeakable Gift of the Holy Ghost

General Epistle:

I invite everybody to think at Christ's visit in the Americas. He taught what we call the “Sermon on the Mount” in basically the same way as he taught it to those in Jerusalem. When he said “my time is at hand”, had he finished teaching? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

I invite you to put down what you're doing grab your scriptures or go to lds.org and read 3 Nephi 17:1-3. When Christ taught the people, they couldn't understand his words.

So, he taught them the Gospel more clearly than in ANY OTHER recorded event, second only to the Atonement itself.

I invite you to try this:

Recognize that Christ had been teaching the Gospel only with words in the previous chapters.






Now, STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING, CLOSE YOUR EYES, BREATHE DEEPLY, THEN OPEN YOUR EYES BACK UP AGAIN AND CALMLY READ ALL OF 3 NEPHI 17.






“My bowels are filled with compassion towards you”

He cured people ALL manner of afflictions and infirmities.

That was when He said His joy was full.

SO WAS HE FINISHED? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

He kept blessing the people, He had angels come down, He blessed the children one by one, He prayed to the Father for them, and He drew everyone's attention to THEM, not to Himself. (“Behold your little ones”)

Words could not express what He did. Have you ever heard of the “unspeakable” Gift of the Holy Ghost?

OK.

Did you get it?

Now, right now, go do something nice for someone. If you're not sure what to do, don't do anything else until you have a sincere idea.

I SEND YOU THIS EMAIL BECAUSE I LOVE YOU

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE AND THE G2'S!

The world is like Chevy: LIKE a rock, but not even close (Helaman 5:12)

Alma 31 verse 1 is basically how I felt

The tail end of the Fatima (Mary) procession

HEY EVERYBODY

The attached picture is from the procession of Fatima (Mary) from Cacilhas to the Cristo Rei statue in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the construction of the statue. I invite you to read Alma 31:1 if you want to know how I felt about that. Luckily, I had my camera at the time because we had just come from a baptism.

Thanks for sending that package off! This might be a little TMI but I got my first blister of the mission this last week, so the new socks should help it be my ONLY blister.

With the proceedings of the last week, I have entered into a G2 crisis [as in pens -- more are in the package!]. I have only a few drops of ink left. I feel like Moroni when he was the last Nephite. I am nearing the end of my third moleskine thanks to what I have been learning this past week.

As a preview, we didn't find new people to teach regularly, though we did find several people who wanted to learn more and wanted to read the Book of Mormon. Preach My Gospel says that “nothing happens in missionary work until you find someone to teach”, so the fact that they didn't want us to come over and teach them makes me feel a little bit of failure in that respect, but I find it hard to believe that encounters such as these cannot be counted as teaching moments.

The freedom in doing my best that I found last week slowly regressed into trying to find ways to improve, which degenerated into another form of perfectionism. I answered huge questions I had about that this morning.

I want to talk about a lesson we had on Sunday with António Fragoso. He served a mission about 20 years ago, has a strong testimony, but doesn't go to church or go to the activites or things like that. He loves history, so we decided to investigate with him the scripture in D&C 88 which says to learn about the perplexities of nations and kingdoms and all that. We read the part in Mosiah about when he translated the record of Ether and wanted everybody to know what was in it. So we decided to read the book of Ether during the week and talk about the lessons in it in our next visit.

This lesson that we had with him was probably the most effective lesson I have ever seen on my mission. We talked for a long time. We talked about how we have the opportunity to cross the great waters (this life) with light or in darkness, based on our faithfulness. We talked about 3 Nephi 10, and once I brought that up with him and related how it has helped me to treat my perfectionism, it started opening him up. He's a rather quiet person. He is very well educated. He doesn't really like to “mix and mingle”. He described himself as being “abnormal”. He has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and of the Restoration, but he has felt rejected by the members, just because he thinks differently and has different interests. 85% of our active members are socially dependent on each other, ignorantly apostate, and stubborn to change. Many of them go to church just to be part of the group and fulfill social expectations than to express their personal gratitude for the Savior and to progress individually. So, you throw in somebody like António Fragoso, and everybody starts jumping all over him because he's not just like them, telling him that he needs to change. When he goes to church, he goes to learn, but it turns into more of a social ritual than a spiritual one. It's no excuse for not going to church, obviously, but it's a clear explanation.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but Sundays are the hardest days for me as a missionary. Culturally, in this mission, we're supposed to be those cheery people shaking everybody's hands and conversing with everybody and seeing how everybody's week went. We're meant to make their experience better. Let me make this clear: I am not that kind of person. During church, I'm pensive and I try to be penitent so those three hours aren't just time lost. Since I've started playing piano, I've loved being able to play prelude music before the meeting and try to make a difference that way instead of being irrevrent. It's made a big difference for the members of the ward, too. It's been quieter in the chapel. Previous missionaries who played the piano never did prelude music because they felt obligated to “meet and greet”. I am not a meet and greet person, and I don't really care about social obligations, honestly. I have made covenants with God, not with them.

So with António Fragoso, I shared with him my simple testimony of Jesus Christ. I don't think I've shared it in email because it's very, very personal, but Jesus Christ is the only reason that I don't give up. I have thought life to death, and there is nothing that justifies it except Him.

I asked António to go to church and just sit up on the front row with me to not have to worry about the rest of the members. He wanted to! He wanted to keep studying parts of the Book of Mormon with us. We're going to review Lehi's dream tonight.

Anyway.

I did a study this morning on faith and works.

In previous discussions and debates with people before the mission, I was taught to reflexively whip out James 2, that says “faith without works is dead” and that Abraham was justified by works.

I found in Romans 3 today some verses that say that we are justified freely by the grace of Christ or even that we are justified by faith not works.

It's an issue that weighs extremely heavily on our minds. “What are the requirements for eternal life?” is a question that created many different churches. Faith? Covenants? Keeping commandments? What exactly is it?

We often feel extremely pressured because of some gravely misunderstood doctrines (as far as I can tell): faith leads to action, signs follow those who believe, we have to show our faith by our actions, etc.

I want to illustrate my point with some extremes:

I have felt like I don't have faith because I am not perfect and don't understand how I'm supposed to do everything right that I'm supposed to do all at the same time. If I really had faith, shouldn't it show in my works? In other words, if I really had faith, wouldn't I keep every commandment like I should, regardless of my weaknesses?

The misunderstood idea is that action is proof of faith. This is false. I guarantee that thousands of “active” members that go to church every week and do everything they're supposed to do do not have faith as strong as we assume they do. They do great things, it appears, but they don't have faith! Actions are not proof of faith.

I was in Alma 25 today in my reading, and Alma 25:15-16 teaches the true relationship between faith an works very clearly: The law (the commandments) do not save you. Keeping the commandments does not save you. D&C 82:10 teaches that the Lord is bound when we do what he says, but can we really believe that we are keeping his commandments perfectly as to merit salvation on our own? They kept the Law of Moses to strengthen their faith in Christ, not to try to prove it. (To whom are we trying to prove our faith, anyway? Other members? Non-members?) They kept the law so they could keep the hope they had in Christ. Christ is the Savior, not our obedience. He is the guarantee. Only he can guarantee our salvation – that's his job, not ours. The Gospel, as taught by his mouth, is faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Anything more or less is “not built upon [his] rock.” When we think we qualify ourselves for salvation, we've started building our foundation on ourselves and not on Him. We must have faith in Him and strengthen our faith and hope in Him.

Action is not proof of faith, but faith is proof of action.

Faith only comes from action.

Action does not instantly produce faith.

The Holy Spirit of Promise is how we can know if we are “justified” or not, and only we can feel that for ourselves.

Salvation is between you and the Lord (and nobody else), and it always will be.

Let's do our best.

LOVE

ELDER LOBO

Pictures will get uploaded later, but here's the letter for this week!

Hey everybody!

Well, this week has been sensational.

Nothing has really changed all that much, but I want to talk about a return I feel like I’ve made.

I’ve described the mission as a fall in a lot of different ways before. When I was at home, everything was provided for, and it was more or less pretty easy to be about as happy as I decided to be, despite all the crazy things happening. Then I left EVERYTHING, more or less, as we all know. The cloud that I thought I walked on before suddenly evaporated from beneath me and it was like Gromit in “A Close Shave” after the sidecar he was in got separated from the motorcycle. It takes pushing a bunch of buttons all at the same time to get the wings open. Even after that, it takes another couple buttons to get the oatmeal gun to pop up.

Before, some people who I worked with often asked me why I had such low expectations in life. I never agreed with them – I didn’t have low expectations, but I never really was able to explain it. Even my boss, Ben, at StowAway2 asked me on my last day how it was that I handled myself. I tried to explain it, but I couldn’t, and I didn’t even know what it was that I was going to explain, but it was something that I never really figured out until now.

When I entered the MTC, I wanted to do my best. However, I don’t know what it is that they put in the food there, but almost everybody who leaves the MTC leaves with this artificial idea of “obedience with exactness”. I took it to an extreme, agonizingly raking myself over the coals anytime I did anything that wasn’t exactly correct. It was and has continued to be very difficult, especially since missionaries tend to take responsibility for the decisions of everybody around them, especially myself. I had been on this ridiculous quest since leaving to find all my weaknesses and then fix them all. I tried to do the same thing with my testimony before I left, trying to answer every question, doubt, or confusion that I had at the time, but it ended up working me down to a void, something I can describe as nothing short of complete darkness and self-exclusion from life. When I realized that I knew more than I thought I knew and that to “know” something is much more of a matter of trust and faith than it is of information, I found this amazing freedom from my knowledge of the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. It was awesome.

Never in my life before the mission did “obedience” ever present itself as an issue to me. But once I hit the MTC, I, along with a significant percentage of others around me, were completely focused on not messing up our one chance in the MTC, trying to do everything perfectly, and since the MTC life was very, very simple, it wasn’t very hard to do more or less “perfectly”.

Once arriving in the mission, life as a greenie was easy. You don’t have anything to do except for your own studies and following your trainer around. Obedience seemed so simple. You just don’t screw up and everything will go fine, right?

Then I got in the office. As many of you remember, I had the niggling question of “Do I do what I think is right or do I do what I am told?” There were no rules to obey exactly in the office. There was no guidance for our job. The church manuals were written more than ten years before and were, in all reality, obsolete. “Never have I given a temporal commandment unto the children of men”, right? But all these guidelines seemed so temporal and obsolete. They were! What in the world was I supposed to do?

I did my best. And I was happy by the end.

Then I came to Almada with that new perspective, and things went pretty well.

Then I got a greenie, and, simply, I reverted to perfectionism. I was so weighed down by imperfection and inadequacy, trying to guarantee some form of success by completing the “small things”, which I couldn’t do perfectly, so I felt like it was hopeless to have any kind of promise fulfilled (D&C 82:10). Anytime something good happened, it felt as if it were chance or coincidence because I knew I wasn’t perfect enough to merit something like that.

I started reverting to what I now call “checklist obedience”, meaning that I should be able to check off all of my duties as being done, and day after day, week after week, it wasn’t happening like I wanted it to. The value of teaching an investigator was about as valuable as washing dishes, because I was supposed to do both, and not doing either would equally keep me from being “exactly obedient” or perfect.

Elder and Sister Kearon, in the Europe Area Presidency, spoke to the mission on Friday. Sister Kearon’s talk spoke right to my center. She spoke about feelings of inadequacy, doubt, and confusion in such a sensitive and precise way that I wish I could study what she said like we study certain conference talks we love. She said so eloquently and gracefully what can only be summarized as “It’s OK. Jesus will make everything alright.” Since Friday I was digesting this idea with what was already in my starving spiritual stomach.

I realized once again on Sunday, as I had in the office, that “exact obedience” is not what we think it is. God doesn’t command in all things, so we can’t have a perfect checklist to obey. It’s not about being perfect. Jesus Christ did not come to save perfect people. He gave his life for the imperfect people.

Monday morning, I was reading in 3 Nephi 10. This is during the destruction prior to the descension of Christ, where the people are weeping bitterly and wailing with very good reason for the loss of their friends and family. They had every reason to be lamenting the loss of their loved ones. It was obvious that the destruction came because of their choice to be wicked. How horrible is it to watch somebody choose to refuse Christ and watch your chance to help them slip away. The Voice says, “How oft I have gathered you... How oft I would have gathered you... and How oft will I gather you...” He’s got his bases covered. Even more reason to deeply mourn the loss of those who refused it in the past, especially ourselves. He will gather us. Once the darkness receded and the mist disappated and the tremors halted, the weeping and wailing ceased. The anguish turned into joy.

What had changed? The immediate situation was much less tumultuous, but they had still lost their family and friends. They could probably see the bodies of those injured and killed in the destruction, along with the ruin and scarred face of the earth. What had changed?

The lamentations turned into thanksgiving for the Lord Jesus Christ, their redeemer.

Monday in district meeting, I talked about this and very emotionally talked about when Miguel chose not to talk to us anymore. But I realized something at that moment that was incredible.

In Preach My Gospel, there’s an activity that says to “express gratitude for the manifestations of the Lord’s hand in your work.”

Let’s define our terms:
Gratitude: The uncontrollable joy felt because of something somebody else has done.
Manifestation: A small representation of something much larger. (like the dorsal fin of a great white shark cutting through the surface of the water)

I read in Moses 7 again that morning: the vision of Enoch. He was so bitterly tormented until the absolute end of the vision (Moses 7:67), which was when he saw the very hour of the redemption of the righteous.

This is when “Jesus will make everything alright.”

That was when Enoch received his fulness of joy, as mentioned in Moses 7:67. Nothing matters without that day. Any blessing we could receive in this life would be completely worthless without the Redemption. It would all be lost. We need that redemption, and very little more. We should be grateful for everything that He gives us. While He gives us many temporal blessings, those things are great, but I just want that last day.

I’m easy to please. My needs are simple, thanks to Jesus Christ. That’s how I managed to live happily without really knowing it. It was because I knew that nothing in this life really matters as much as we think it does, because everything depends upon that great last day.

We can be happy by being grateful of manifestations of that great day to come in our everyday life. Small changes in investigators, members, or even ourselves are small samples of what the hour of our redemption will be like. The time that we feel our burdens made just barely lighter, we can be grateful for that manifestation of the time when “Jesus will make everything alright.”

I am so unbelievably thankful for Jesus Christ, because I know that He will make everything alright. I am so thankful for this time that I have to have a sample of what it must be like for Him to shepherd us in. It’s painful, but it’s amazing. He doesn’t need my help. He could do this Himself. But he lets me experience it.

We should express gratitude for the manifestations of the perfect change that can happen within us and those we love, when Christ will cure our spiritual blindness and deafness, like he did physically while he walked physically on the Earth. He will make everything alright.

The Gift of the Holy Ghost is so much simpler we think it is. We may think that we have to “qualify” for the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and that’s true in a sense. When we establish our own terms for that qualification, like a perfectionist checklist of commandments we have to obey, we lose it. The greatest of all the gifts of God is eternal life (which is a perfection of our agency, which is the greatest gift God has ALREADY given us). Eternal life can be nothing more complicated than joy. The Gift of the Holy Ghost in its simplicity is nothing more than peace in knowing with certainty that Jesus really will make everything alright.

After realizing all this, I have felt as if I have been born again. I have felt able to forgive myself. I have felt unrestrained in loving and forgiving others. I have felt peace. I have been happy. It sounds too good to be true, but it’s nothing that I did or will do, aside from expressing gratitude for manifestations of the day when Jesus will make everything alright.

Let’s be more grateful – and let’s never forget that great day that will come.

Love to all,

Elder Lobo